In the last year or so, I’ve found and fallen in love with an author named Natalie Runion. And when I say she speaks truth bombs wherever she goes, I mean it. Books, sermons, Instagram posts… she doesn’t really do “soft takes.” She just tells the truth.
The first book I read was Raised to Stay, and if you’re in ministry, you already know… you know.
Church hurt is real. That part is not up for debate. But so is the other side of it, the way people sometimes use that pain as a reason to step away from the Church, from ministry, or even from Jesus altogether.
One of my favorite quotes from Raised to Stay says:
“Jesus. He is the Famous One. When we finally get to this point in ministry where we are giving people less of us and more of him, that’s how we begin figuring a way off this island.”
That line hit me hard.
We’ve drifted so far off center in ministry sometimes that we forget what the center even is. And Natalie has this way of lovingly, but firmly, calling us back to it.
Then she followed it up with The House That Jesus Built, which is honestly just a gut punch in the best way:
“I want to be a generation of holy harbingers… prophetic voices in the Church… carrying the Word of God to edify, exhort, and encourage… and to warn against things that tear up our foundations and devour the sheep…”
It’s a reminder that we don’t get to just shape the Church around preference or personality. We don’t get to cherry pick the parts of Scripture that are comfortable and ignore the rest. And if we’re honest, it’s easy to slip into more “me” and “us” language than “what does Jesus actually want?”
That realization has a way of gently … sometimes not so gently … putting everything back in order.
And I’ll be honest: she’s been one of those voices that feels like it both convicts me and comforts me at the same time. Like being lovingly sat down, told the truth, and reminded again of the vision God has already placed in my heart and in my husband’s life for the Church.
(P.S. She has another book called I Don’t Even Like Women that I cannot wait to read.)
But I digress.
Earlier this week, I was scrolling Instagram in that not-great-late-night-doom-scroll kind of way when I came across Natalie speaking at a church. And she said something that stopped me:
“Our job, as the Church, is to hand out scarlet ropes, not assign scarlet letters.”
Boom.
Mic drop.
I was ready to jump out of bed and shout “YES” at the top of my lungs.
Because this isn’t just a clever phrase it’s a question that has been stirring in me for a while now, and I think it’s one every church (and honestly every believer) has to wrestle with:
What are we actually known for?
If someone in your community, someone who’s made a mess of their life, thought about walking through your church doors, what do they expect they’ll find?
Grace or judgment?
Hope or shame?
A family or a courtroom?
Because if we’re honest, the Church has sometimes become more known for the people we’ve pushed away than the people we’ve welcomed home.
And before anyone gets nervous, this isn’t about ignoring sin or pretending it doesn’t matter. It does. Holiness matters. Truth matters. Scripture matters.
But so does this: the way we treat people who are still trying to find Jesus.
We’ve become really good at identifying sin…
…but not always as good at introducing people to the Savior.
We’ve gotten fluent in scarlet letters.
But God has always been in the business of scarlet ropes.
And if you’re wondering what I mean by that, it all goes back to Rahab and her story in Joshua chapter 2.
Not just Rahab. Rahab the prostitute.
That’s how she was labeled. That’s how she was known. But God never let her label have the final word. God rewrote it.
In fact, we find her in the genealogy of Jesus Himself in Matthew 1:5. Let that sink in for a second. The “Rahab the prostitute” the city labeled… becomes part of the lineage of Christ.
God didn’t erase her past to use her future, He redeemed it.
And that’s the part that undoes me.
Because if God can take a scarlet letter story and weave it into the very line that brings Jesus into the world… then there is no story too far gone, no label too permanent, no person too overlooked for Him to redeem.
This is who He is.
A God of grace. A God of mercy. A God whose arms are still wide open, still inviting, still pursuing people back to Himself, not with a gavel, but with an invitation to repent and return.
And maybe that’s the question we’re left with.
Not just “What is the Church known for?”
But more personal than that…
What am I known for?
When people encounter me, my words, my posture, my reactions, do they experience scarlet letters… or scarlet ropes?
Do I reflect a God who assigns labels?
Or a God who rewrites stories?
Because if we carry the name of Jesus, then we don’t just carry truth, we carry the way He handles truth. With grace that doesn’t ignore brokenness, but refuses to leave people there.
Maybe today is a good moment to ask Him to search us there. To soften what’s hardened. To realign what’s drifted. To make sure that when people encounter us, they aren’t met with distance…
…but with a rope.
A way home.
Just like He’s always offered us.
XOXO Whitney